Ludovisi, Rome: Via Veneto, the Capuchin Crypt and the Villa That Was Sold Off

Everything in this rione begins with a garden that no longer exists. Italian Wikipedia records that Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Gregory XV, bought the Villa Orsini in 1622 and enlarged it with adjoining properties, over the ground of the Horti Sallustiani; Roma Capitale's via Veneto page instead dates his purchase of the Horti land to 1621. The buildings were designed by Domenichino, who is credited with at least part of the gardens too on the strength of Bellori (1672), Malvasia (1678), Sebastiani (1683) and Milizia (1768); later writers attribute the gardens instead to André Le Nôtre, on the strength of Milizia's own Memorie of 1781. Italian Wikipedia presents that as an unsettled scholarly dispute, and so does this guide.

The villa's extent is reported variously: Italian Wikipedia's article on the villa gives 30 hectares, its article on the rione says the 1886 convention put about 25 hectares of park to subdivision, and the Boncompagni Ludovisi family's own archive at villaludovisi.org gives 89.6 acres. Subdivision was decided in 1883, and Italian Wikipedia's articles on the villa and on the rione both date the convention with the Comune and the Società Generale Immobiliare to 1886, signed sotto gli auspici del sindaco di Roma, duca Leopoldo Torlonia. Its article on Palazzo Margherita dates that convention to 1883 instead; the two dates come from two articles and this guide does not pick between them.

The gardens, the casini and the palazzo were mostly not spared. Italian Wikipedia says the cardinal's collection ran to more than 450 antique sculptures, that a hundred or so were bought by the Italian state in 1910 and first placed in the Piccolo Chiostro at Santa Maria degli Angeli, and that the collection is not in Ludovisi. The Trono Ludovisi was not part of that collection: Italian Wikipedia records that it was found in 1887, during the destruction of the villa. What survives on the ground is the Casino dell'Aurora, and the trees of two gardens.

Via Vittorio Veneto, universally called via Veneto, climbs from Piazza Barberini to Porta Pinciana. Italian Wikipedia files the street under two rioni, Colonna and Ludovisi, and states that along its opening stretch the street separates the one from the other; its upper length runs through Ludovisi. Roma Capitale dates the street's creation to 1894, when it was laid out as a broad passeggiata Umbertina during the building-over of Villa Ludovisi; Italian Wikipedia's rione article instead says the street was completed in 1906. It was renamed for the battle of Vittorio Veneto by resolution of the Giunta Municipale, no. 37 of 25 October 1919. Roma Capitale records that the street's international fame rests on the Dolce Vita, and states that Fellini rebuilt via Veneto in the studios at Cinecittà rather than filming on it.

Roma Capitale records that the Hotel Excelsior on via Veneto was inaugurated in 1906 by Baron von Pfyffer, the owner of the Grand Hotel, among the first-class hotels built along the new street. Via Veneto ends at the Aurelian Walls, at the largo named for Federico Fellini. This guide publishes no length for the street, because the figure that circulates is an unreferenced Wikipedia infobox value, and it claims neither the street nor the gate at the top of it as a place: Roma Capitale publishes a via Veneto address for Porta Pinciana together with a coordinate that falls in the quartiere Pinciano, and Italian Wikipedia's boundary description makes the walls up to that gate the rione's edge rather than something inside it.

Via Veneto climbs from Piazza Barberini to Porta Pinciana, so arriving at the bottom means walking up and leaving from the top means walking down.

Four of the five borders run down the middle of a street, which is worth knowing before you trust a map pin. Italian Wikipedia describes the perimeter as the Aurelian Walls up to Porta Pinciana with the quartiere Pinciano; via di Porta Pinciana and via Francesco Crispi with Campo Marzio; via degli Artisti, via di Sant'Isidoro and via Veneto with Colonna; via di San Basilio with Trevi; and via Friuli, via Lucullo, via Boncompagni and via Calabria as far as piazza Fiume, excluded, with Sallustiano. The Sallustiano article gives the same line from the other side. On via Boncompagni the odd numbers are Ludovisi and the even numbers Sallustiano: St Patrick's, at no. 31, is in this rione, and the Museo Boncompagni Ludovisi, at no. 18, is not.